Lux
by clannead
Summary: When a lone sentinel of Gondor is found wandering the outer borders of Mirkwood, the Elvenking struggles to glean answers from whom he discovers is not a sentinel at all...but a shieldmaiden of Ithilien. Thranduil/OC. Pre-book/movie.
1. Chapter 1

prologue.

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"_We found him wandering our borders, your highness_."

In Silvan, they spoke, the speech gliding like silver over elegant tongues. The guards threw down the heavily armored prisoner, the gloved hands bound behind his back in thin Elvish rope. Above them, the Elvenking stared – his gaze clear and cold, like the color of water glittering beneath winter's pale sun. There grew a harshness to the posture which, before the guards' entrance, had been slouched, yet poised. Now the limbs tangled together in cruel angles as the King sat visibly forward.

Etched into the faded steel gray breast plate was a symbol recognizable by even the youngest among the Woodland elves – the white tree wearing a crown of stars.

"Gondorian armor," he said aloud, waving the guards silently toward the back of the room. They complied, bowing as their King rose with grace from his throne of antlers and dark climbing ivy. "You are far from your borders. Why have you come to this place?"

The figure did not speak. It kneeled before the throne, head and lean shoulders bowed in great weariness.

"No harm will come to you," the King promised, though only he himself knew it was hollow reassurance. "Comply with my policies and you shall be released. Tell me, son of Gondor – why have you come?"

When still, no answer came, the Elvenking became impatient and strode forth – fluid, with the seamless gait of quick running water. Halting before his prisoner, he gripped the crown of the helmet and ripped it harshly away. Without so much as a glance he tossed it from him and the stones echoed the sound of crashing, scraping metal.

Though astonishment crossed the faces of the waiting guards, they did not speak. They stood silent in the shadows and continued to watch from a safe distance in growing fascination.

Long dark hair pooled in the folded lap beneath. The King took into his hand the pointed chin and wrenched it upward to meet his narrowed gaze. They were soft features, though carved and whittled down into sharp hungry angles by long months without food, and unmistakably female.

"A shieldmaiden," said he, tightening his grip so that the long nails pierced white flesh. She winced, but did not give him the satisfaction of hearing her cry aloud. "Now that your secret has been revealed, there is nothing to hide. _Tell _me or it is the dungeons for you."

Her eyes flared, like a breath across fire. The king had lowered his face, only slightly, so that it was nearly level with her's. She took advantage of the proximity and spat on him, the motion of it cruel and quick. In disgust, he recoiled, drawing his hand upward to wipe away the gob of spit that now warmed in the hollow of his cheek. It gleamed yellow-red in the firelight as he saw it smeared across the back of his hand and his mouth slackened into a heated snarl.

He returned it to her – striking her across the face with a strength she did not anticipate from a creature so slight that it seemed so fragile like spun white glass. It throbbed, angry red, and already a darkness had begun to gather beneath the welted skin. A stark bruise slowly rose to the surface.

The king sneered, towering over her once more. "Do you wish to speak now, _shieldmaiden_?"

A silence settled over the hall. Behind them, the guards began to tense, prepared to move from their post the moment it was asked of them.

Still, stubbornly, the Elvenking waited for his answer. And as he looked down upon her, it so slowly began to dawn on him that he could sooner pry jewels from the most greedy of dwarves than a word from this woman.

He waved the guards back with a sweep of his long, gracefully curled fingers. "Perhaps a long respite in our friendly dungeons shall loosen your lips."

The guards watched him eagerly for further instruction, fisting their hands in the rough Gondorian wool of her tunic. The prisoner slumped at their feet.

"Take her to the chambers," the King ordered, something of a malevolent smile pricking at the corners of his mouth. "And make certain that no food, water, or light will find her there. Not unless she is ready to give answers in exchange for them."

Nodding only once in understanding, they bowed low to their leader and turned away. The prisoner numbly submitted and followed them out of the throne room –

Hall of Thranduil, Elvenking of the Mirkwood Realm.


	2. Chapter 2

The cell, in which she had lost all knowledge of the passing of time in that darkness, was at least clean. It was a comfort she had not been afforded in the cells of Minas Tirith.

But within that small corner of the world the gloom was suffocating, unrelenting, like a pall that would never lift. It must have been only days, but there was no shift in setting, no hint of light that could tell her the difference between hours and years.

It certainly felt like years had passed since she felt the sun on her face. Already she missed the smell of grass as it was crushed beneath the hooves of her mount. Always the color – of rough wool tunics and the eyes of a starving child – would recall the smell of it to her. Behind the towering walls of the city, one could not see the sun. Nor smell the windswept meadows beyond the front gates. Only dust of stone. Smoke and iron.

Strange, it was, to miss something that one would never think of being without. Now her heart ached for the outside world.

When at last her eyes had become accustomed to the absence of light, she found herself in a room much too small for comfort. Steel bars rose high above her like black trees, and outside of them she could see faint outlines of unlit corridors turning around bends and smooth earth floors. In one corner, bushels of crisp straw composed the only space for bedding in the chamber. She had seen much worse in Minas Tirith, and they had been houses – dwelling places where the people of the city slept and ate and waited. Prisons were even more terrifying.

There, the beds of straw were soaked through with old horse urine, as the bushels had been mucked from the steward's stalls. She'd thought, at first, that she had been alone there in her long-rusted fetters – with only the echoes of her unheard cries for company and comfort. But rats soon began to appear, eyes like small lamps blinking back at her in the low firelight; long into the night the sound of their claws scratching against the cobbled rock would keep her awake, until dawn broke and she had not slept for fear of one finding her in her chains.

Bread was stale and full of maggots. Water was pulled from stagnant water troughs, from which even the sows would not drink. There was no dignity in the prisons of Gondor – only shame and despair.

Here, there was madness instead. A different kind of cruelty altogether.

Miserable, she huddled herself into the corner, trying not to think of the smell and the hunger and the cheerless silence which plagued her. She had hidden as best she could the acrid tang of urine beneath the bundle of straw in the corner, but her humiliation - she could not bury it deep enough. It crawled out from its sticky shallow grave and pawed at her feet like a beggar.

And still, no one came for her. She lay across the dank earth, digging her nails into the soil as she watched, waited – for anyone to come.

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"You are no shieldmaiden."

The voice shook her from her sleep. Startled, she scuttled backward into her corner until she could escape no further. The voice was spoken silk. Soft, sweet, and gentle, like gossamer warmed with the heat of skin…

The Elvenking had come.

As she awakened fully, her eyes adjusted to the new light he had brought with him. Torchlight. Red-gold, like that which came from the sconces which embellished each corridor of this dark place. The Elvenking had brought his in a candelabrum.

"These armaments you wear," he uttered solemnly, drawing the point of his needle-thin sword down the breast of her armor. "Are stolen. You are a thief. And I do not take kindly to thieves."

"You have not heard my tale," said she in reply, looking up at him defiantly. "And already you know who I am? Tell me, o' great king. Have you the gift of foresight like so many of your kind?"

"You would be wise to show reverence to the leader of these people," Thranduil reminded her. "I have seen many like you throughout the passing of time. Proud, impudent, depraved. They were always the first to fall – cowards in the face of true peril."

She set her teeth on edge as he watched her, the origins of a smirk forming in the corners of his fine pink lips. "King you may be to these people, as you say. But you hold no sovereignty over me," she said. "I need not show reverence to the likes of tyrants."

Again he raised his sword. His face was clear of all colored emotion, cheeks fair and clean. "I had first thought you mute. What sweet relief to find you are quite capable of using that sharp tongue of yours," he said. "Tell me, this tale you speak of. And shall we start at the beginning? Or the chapter where you advise me why it is you are here."

"I will give no such account."

"It is so simple a thing, to comply with my laws," said he, his voice steady and patient even as the fire in her began to burn quick and hot. "What strange convictions must you have to disobey them!"

"Only tyrants guard their lands so closely. Do not worry, o' king, no fair and just leader would waste the blood of his people on this black, cheerless place…"

His eyes grew wet and soft with sorrow no sooner had the words left her mouth. "Perhaps it is only for the sake of his people he does this. This tyrant you speak of."

The lovely white hands clasped behind his back, he turned gracefully on his feet. There was an effortless majesty in each movement, the kind of which she had never seen even in the ancient dances of her people. No sound issued from the pads of the slippers beneath his robes as he walked. Not even a whisper, though he carried the weight of ancient tragedy on his thin and regal shoulders.

His back turned to her, she saw only the dip of his chin as bent his pale silver head and spoke. "You will not leave this place until you give me answer."

When he had long been gone, she dropped her knees from her chest and stretched her legs across the sallow clay. All light had been drained from the corridors once again in his absence, but even in the darkness she could perceive a much deeper shadow in the corner across from her – rectangular in length, but she could not guess what it was.

She came nearer to it, cautious, and flattened her palm over what she discovered was a small slab of bread. A wooden basin of water had been placed neatly beside it, and a goblet for drinking. Meager rations, but nonetheless they were fresh and the bread still warm.

Cupping the bread before her, she pressed her forehead to the crust which gave beneath the weight of bone. Heat flourished there. It spread down the length of her nose and flared across the summits of her cheeks.

Such simple kindness would not have been afforded in the prisons of Gondor.


End file.
